Who is afraid of the new technologies?
In thinking back to the titans of the tech explosion, their meager beginnings in garages as they created world-changing ideas. Do we think for one second they had sinister thoughts to abuse their power? I believe not, and I believe they were altruistic in their desire to create wonderful things for humanity first and then make oodles of money.
Many of us are afraid of the power of technology and even more so of the few who control it. We live in a world where humans can ruin the best of all, including innovation. As we look far to the horizon, the future is fascinating, we can see our lives changing exponentially with the help of technologies that are now ready to deploy. At the same time on the same horizon, dark clouds are brewing, because unless we create profound trust, many may find themselves slow to adopt leaving the technologies in the hands of too few.
I believe that humans are inherently good, we all start with the very best of intentions. At some point the aphrodisiac, AKA power is switched on, triggered by some strand of our DNA which seems to me to be ever so prevalent and repetitive in the history of humankind.
We bask in the glory of success, we become arrogant believing that we know better, know more. That the fact we reach success allows us to be intolerant of other opinions, or able to listen to those around us. Some of us may surround ourselves with sycophants, who feed and facilitate our egos. Eventually, the joy and purity of our innovation turns to rote which fuels in some our insecurities and then we are faced with a violent need to control, because we simply are no longer leading with our hearts, we are leading with our heads.
Today we no longer need the biggest army or the most powerful weapons to control, we just need a really good idea, some kickass algorithms and we can be Monarchs. This past week in the United States Senate Dr. Robert Epstein Ph.D. in behavioral science, testified that he believes that in the 2016 presidential elections, GOOGLE using a proprietary algorithm may have influenced between 2.6m and 10m votes for Sec. Clinton. Dr. Epstein is a democrat who voted for Sec. Clinton, so he appears unbiased. We also learned in the same hearing, that the largest contributor to Sec. Clinton’s campaign was Alphabet Inc. Google’s holding company.
The 2016 election may be the turning point for all of us, we have arrived at a place where we no longer trust our institutions to be unbiased. We are rebelling against historical societal norms, cemented by the testimony of this nature. We see Amazon and its founder Jeff Bezos’s footprint, or we hear Facebook wants to float its currency and we experience fear.
What are we to do?
Anything in life can be used for good or for bad, the answer is always trust. The new technologies leading to the programmable economy can, when deployed give us trust. In every industry we can create the framework, using Blockchain, IoT, AI, to ensure the depth of trust which will assuage our fears.
The new technologies will be able to measure, authenticate, and report in pure transparency, without the interference of humans. Set up at inception we can create a full-proof ledger of every supply chain so consumers can feel confident in their purchase. When speaking of food, this becomes a critical issue. When it comes to integrity or truthfulness it gives comfort to the customer to know who they are dealing with. When it comes to financial transactions it will be invaluable. Medicine and its authenticity, every step of the supply chain verified and authenticated. Tens of millions of transactions every minute independently verified with complete trust.
Many people are not yet embracing the new technologies, big companies dread the costs of change, small and medium-sized companies do not believe they have the resources. In speaking to high-level consultants who have major clients, they are still not convinced or fully understanding blockchain and IoT. They often talk on wanting to see test cases, on the applications and if the ROI will be worth the investment, all fair questions. We see it another way.
If there is NO other use of blockchain and the new technologies other than creating a trust for humanity who needs a test case?
In 2017 the world spent 700M on blockchain, the projections are that there will be 60B by 2024, we know that small and medium-sized enterprises will fall behind, this is why we feel the time is now.
By Joelle Berdugo-Adler
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joey-adler/